NativeScript/DevelopmentWorkflow.md

Development Workflow

Project Structure

The repository contains several packages and apps:

• tns-core-modules - The core NativeScript TypeScript modules used to develop NativeScript apps.
• apps - UI app used for manual testing and automation.
• e2e - applications and e2e tests.
• tests - Unit tests app for the tns-core-modules.
• tns-platform-declarations - TypeScript definitions for Android and iOS native APIs.

Working with the repo is organized with npm scripts, go and read through the scripts section in the package.json.

Managing dependencies:

• tns-core-modules depends on:
  • tns-platform-declarations
• apps depends on:
  • tns-platform-declarations
  • tns-core-modules
• e2e depends on:
  • tns-core-modules
• tests depends on:
  • tns-platform-declarations
  • tns-core-modules

NOTE: tns-core-modules depends on tns-core-modules-widgets, this dependency contains native code and is rarely modified so for now it remains outside this repo.

Initial Setup

Clone (or fork/clone) the repo:

git clone https://github.com/NativeScript/NativeScript.git

Install devDependencies:

npm install

Run setup script. This will npm link the tns-core-modules and tns-core-modules-declarations dependencies inside the tests and apps projects.

npm run setup

TypeScript

The following commands are commonly used to compile the tns-core-modules:

# Full tsc with type checking ~22.2s.
tsc

# Fast tsc ~11.2s.
tsc --skipLibCheck

# Fast watcher, ~4s. on save
tsc --skipLibCheck -w

The modules have typescript as a devDependency so you should also be able to use the locally installed TypeScript compiler from node_modules:

./node_modules/.bin/tsc

You can compile the TypeScript files in the tns-core-modules, tns-platform-declarations, apps and tests at once at the root of the repo:

npm run tsc

Running Unit Tests

The test app is an ordinary NativeScript app that logs the test results as it go. After the initial setup you can run the tests with:

# Make sure TypeScript is transpiled
tsc

# Run the tests app
tns run ios --path tests
tns run android --path tests

Running the Test App

The test app is an ordinary NativeScript app that logs the test results as it go. After the initial setup you can run the tests with:

# Make sure TypeScript is transpiled
tsc

# Run the app
tns run ios --path apps
tns run android --path apps

Running Another App

The initial setup will npm-link the tns-core-modules globally. You can use it in any local project:

# Run once: Link tns-core-modules in your project
npm link tns-core-modules

# Run the app
tns run ios
tns run android

Note: You still have to rebuild the TypeScript if you have made changes in the code of the core-modules.

Platform declarations

To update the platform declarations (the ios.d.ts-es) you can run:

npm install
npm run dev-declarations

This script will update the iOS declarations. Android tools are not integrated yet. The declarations are generated from the test app and will include the native code from tns-core-modules-widgets.

Documentation API reference

The following will build the API reference pages in bin/dist/apiref:

npm run typedoc

If you want to improve on the documentation you can also build and start up dev web server:

npm run dev-typedoc

The terminal will point the address you can open in your web browser.